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Topic: Tennis has a steroid problem (Read 11015 times)

Copying and pasting a post from someone on FB today. I have little opinion on the steroid problem, I am just pasting here so don't hate the messanger. Curious about the site referenced though, I will have to check it out. The Panic Room incident is interesting though:

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Really tired of all the "rabid" Serena fans. There are those who compare her (and a certain top male player who people love) to a certain bicycle rider who many mistakenly admired. She and the male player are the most outspoken players against drug testing in tennis. In fact (yes fact) while all other players were being tested randomly and numerous times during competition and outside of competition, Serena Williams received ZERO drug tests in 2010 and 2011. Here is a timeline from a very complex site called "Tennis Has a Steroid Problem." Sure sounds similar to a bicycle rider-pay attention to October 26 post:

July 7, 2010: Williams cuts both of her feet on broken glass at an unnamed restaurant in Munich Germany. The cuts require "18 stitches: six inside the cut on her right foot and six on top of that foot, and six stitches on the bottom of her left foot." Restaurant is to this day "unnamed."

July 8, 2010: One day after receiving 18 stitches in her foot, Williams goes to Belgium to play an exhibition match against Kim Cljisters.

July 15, 2010: Williams has "surgery to repair a lacerated tendon on the top of her right foot July 15 at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles."

October 2010: Second surgery on foot, and spends "10 weeks in a cast and 10 weeks in a walking boot."

February 2011: Williams hospitalized for a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs).

February 28, 2011: Williams returns to hospital "because of a large hematoma on her stomach. The gathering of blood under the skin grew from a "golf ball" to the size of "a grapefruit."

August-September 2011: Plays US Open, loses in final. Does not play another tournament in 2011.

October 26, 2011: Williams retreats to panic room and calls 911 when ITF doping control officer arrives for 6am out-of-competition test. No public comment made by Williams about the incident. ITF anti-doping statistics indicate that zero out-of-competition samples were collected from Williams in 2010 and 2011. No explanation given by ITF or Williams on why no sample was collected during panic room incident.

January 2012: Plays Brisbane, wins 1st and 2nd round then withdraws with left ankle injury. Plays Australian Open, loses in 4th round.

I think Fed pretty much admitted to being on roids when he was referring to his massive left arm.

Logged

I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, "You're gonna have to move, you're blocking a fire exit." As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammible and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit. - Mitch Hedberg

Copying and pasting a post from someone on FB today. I have little opinion on the steroid problem, I am just pasting here so don't hate the messanger. Curious about the site referenced though, I will have to check it out. The Panic Room incident is interesting though:

Quote

Really tired of all the "rabid" Serena fans. There are those who compare her (and a certain top male player who people love) to a certain bicycle rider who many mistakenly admired. She and the male player are the most outspoken players against drug testing in tennis. In fact (yes fact) while all other players were being tested randomly and numerous times during competition and outside of competition, Serena Williams received ZERO drug tests in 2010 and 2011. Here is a timeline from a very complex site called "Tennis Has a Steroid Problem." Sure sounds similar to a bicycle rider-pay attention to October 26 post:

July 7, 2010: Williams cuts both of her feet on broken glass at an unnamed restaurant in Munich Germany. The cuts require "18 stitches: six inside the cut on her right foot and six on top of that foot, and six stitches on the bottom of her left foot." Restaurant is to this day "unnamed."

July 8, 2010: One day after receiving 18 stitches in her foot, Williams goes to Belgium to play an exhibition match against Kim Cljisters.

July 15, 2010: Williams has "surgery to repair a lacerated tendon on the top of her right foot July 15 at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles."

October 2010: Second surgery on foot, and spends "10 weeks in a cast and 10 weeks in a walking boot."

February 2011: Williams hospitalized for a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs).

February 28, 2011: Williams returns to hospital "because of a large hematoma on her stomach. The gathering of blood under the skin grew from a "golf ball" to the size of "a grapefruit."

August-September 2011: Plays US Open, loses in final. Does not play another tournament in 2011.

October 26, 2011: Williams retreats to panic room and calls 911 when ITF doping control officer arrives for 6am out-of-competition test. No public comment made by Williams about the incident. ITF anti-doping statistics indicate that zero out-of-competition samples were collected from Williams in 2010 and 2011. No explanation given by ITF or Williams on why no sample was collected during panic room incident.

January 2012: Plays Brisbane, wins 1st and 2nd round then withdraws with left ankle injury. Plays Australian Open, loses in 4th round.

I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, "You're gonna have to move, you're blocking a fire exit." As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammible and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit. - Mitch Hedberg

I can't get very concerned about this mainly because there is no way I can be reliably informed. Inevitably some players will get caught and others will get away with it.

I do get annoyed when players like Serena play well one day and quit for the next match with a "toe injury" as she did at Cincy in 2011. I was not convinced by one explanation that circulated at the time saying that the toe was injured during a ride at the local amusement park.

*** Some thoughts to carry people through the 2nd week of the Australian Open. The quotes below come from Charlie Francis (who was Ben Johnson's sprint coach), appearing in his book Speed Trap, published all the way back in 1990. And no offense to Tyler Hamilton, but Francis's book is far superior to The Secret Race. Anyway, here's some of the things Francis had to say: <blockquote>"...steroids are training drugs, an investment for a future advantage. User improve because they can train harder and faster--and superior training yields superior performances down the road. When a world-class athlete claims he doesn't need steroids because he "work hard," he is stating a non sequitur. It is the steroids that allow him to work so hard--to increase his training capacity and withstand extreme physiological stress, thereby raising his performance level." (p. 90-91) </blockquote> <blockquote>"International sport is moving irrevocably toward a two-tiered athletic society--to prosecute the great mass of uninformed and expendable players, while giving carte blanche to a handful of well-connected superstars. Doping control in the 1990s will formalize limited, beatable testing--a controlled and selective roulette with the risk of major scandal. The anxious network sugar daddies will be appeased, the record-hungry fans satiated. And if the competitions become over-produced Hollywood farces, with an ever-widening gap between the few authentic contenders and all the rest with no chance, who will be the wiser." (p. 299)

"If we are to have drug testing worthy of the name, it must be administered by an independent agency, one without ties to the commercial side of the sport." (p. 302)</blockquote> <blockquote> "...as long as hundredths of seconds translate into millions of dollars and blinding celebrity, athletes will do whatever they can to win."</blockquote>

Reuters) - Novak Djokovic's cheque for winning the Australian Open on Sunday was more than the entire annual budget for anti-doping in tennis, a program many feel is woefully inadequate.

Djokovic and Andy Murray left Melbourne on Monday with a combined $3.8 million in their pockets for their efforts over the past fortnight.

The total funding for the 2013 anti-doping program stands at $2 million, paid for by the four grand slams, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and ATP and WTA Tours. The cost includes $400,000 for the administration of the program, paid for by the ITF.

Many players, including Djokovic and Murray, have called for more blood tests to ensure there is no cheating.

Of the 2,150 tests carried out by the ITF in 2011, the last set of figures available, 131 were blood tests and only 21 were out of competition.

Blood tests accounted for between three and six percent of all tests in tennis in 2011, compared to 35 percent in cycling and 17.6 percent in athletics.

"I would struggle to know if there is any other sport where their drug-testing program has gone backwards in recent years," said Darren Cahill, who coached Lleyton Hewitt and Andre Agassi to the world number one spot.

Following Lance Armstrong's confession that he took drugs in all seven of his Tour de France cycling wins, tennis has come in for greater scrutiny with regards to doping.

"You get blood tested at the slams, usually after you lose, but I've never been blood tested out of competition," said American Mike Bryan, who won a record 13th grand slam title together with twin brother Bob Bryan in the men's doubles on Saturday.

Bryan told Reuters he is probably tested around 20 times a year, but out-of-competition, through the whereabouts programme, it has only ever been urine tests.

Urine tests can detect many drugs, including EPO, one of several taken by Armstrong and other leading cyclists but only blood tests can detect HGH, human growth hormone.

SLIPPING THROUGH

John Fahey, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said tennis has an "effective anti-doping programme" but that more should be done.

"If there are insufficient blood samples being taken then athletes will become aware of that and make it the drug of their choice because they know the sport does not pay attention to blood testing," Fahey told Reuters by telephone.

"I would like to see a compulsory percentage of all tests being blood to make sure that some of these areas are not slipping through the loop.

"There has been a propensity to draw back on blood testing across the board. I will be pushing to have that altered by way of mandatory blood testing provisions in the amended code that will be signed off in November this year at our world conference.

"Another worry is that sometimes when they take a urine sample they do not tell the laboratory to analyse it for everything.

"EPO, which was the drug of choice, was not being tested for to keep the costs down. I believe that we need to change that."

Bryan said if players have any evidence their rivals are cheating, they have an obligation to tell the authorities.

"You'd rat them out," he told Reuters. "It's like the honour code; you have to. You just don't want to get caught up in a whole scandal like that. You want to do the right thing, even if it's your friend. If it was my brother, I'd probably rat my brother out."

INVEST

Between the grand slams, the ATP Tour, WTA Tour and ITF circuits, tennis pays out at least $300 million in prize money, while installing and running the Hawk-Eye challenge system costs tournaments between $50,000 and $60,000 per court.

Cahill said the increasing revenue created by the sport globally means that more should be invested in the programme.

"Maybe with all the money the players are pulling out of the slams at the moment, it might even be a pro-active thing for the players to invest a little bit back into the programme," he told Reuters.

"That would send a strong message to the community that not only do we believe in our sport but that we're also making sure we're taking measures to make sure our sport is clean."

Fahey said the responsibility for funding was with the authorities, not the players.

"It's up to the administrators to make abundantly clear that funds will be allocated," he said. "If that means cutting back on a small percentage of the prize money allocated at any tournament then so be it.

The ITF said last week that it is considering introducing the biological passport, which detects changes in biological markers in the blood, rather than looking for specific drugs.

Some players have said that the relatively low number of positive tests - there have been 63 "incidences of doping" since 1995 - shows that the sport is clean.

But Cahill disagreed: "I think the lessons of the last few months are that we can never be too careful with that."

(Editing by Patrick Johnston)

The total funding for the 2013 anti-doping program stands at $2 million, paid for by the four grand slams, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and ATP and WTA Tours. The cost includes $400,000 for the administration of the program, paid for by the ITF.

"I would struggle to know if there is any other sport where their drug-testing program has gone backwards in recent years," said Darren Cahill, who coached Lleyton Hewitt and Andre Agassi to the world number one spot.

I'm sure that some guys are doping like in any other sports, but we can only speculate. the thing is, that tennis is not cycling, and in order to win matches you have to have skills first and then be athletic too.

However, I do agree that the ATP should invest more money in testing players and take this issue more seriously. Nole, Fed, Murray gave a very strong support to this and even they think that testing is a 'joke'. There is a good article, but I can't remember where I read it, where Djokovic said he hadn't been tested for over 6 months, same with Fed. The good thing is that top guys are vocal about it and have no problem with it.

I'm sure that some guys are doping like in any other sports, but we can only speculate. the thing is, that tennis is not cycling, and in order to win matches you have to have skills first and then be athletic too.

However, I do agree that the ATP should invest more money in testing players and take this issue more seriously. Nole, Fed, Murray gave a very strong support to this and even they think that testing is a 'joke'. There is a good article, but I can't remember where I read it, where Djokovic said he hadn't been tested for over 6 months, same with Fed. The good thing is that top guys are vocal about it and have no problem with it.

Doping may be more prevalent among the lower ranks and has nothing to do with bulking up. It helps endurance, but more than anything, affords players the opportunity to play through injury. Who knows, maybe these dudes having the best years of their careers after the age of 28 are on the dope... Stepanek, Llodra, Federer, guys like that.

again Babs, we can only speculate. I mean if top dogs don't get tested so often, what's happening with someone ranked 100-200/300? I just don't know. How often do they test players ranked, let's say 400-500. do they even test them?

again Babs, we can only speculate. I mean if top dogs don't get tested so often, what's happening with someone ranked 100-200/300? I just don't know. How often do they test players ranked, let's say 400-500. do they even test them?

Can a player ranked 400-500 afford this? Cyclists belong to a team with sponsors and financial resources. Lowly ranked tennis players rarely do so.

again Babs, we can only speculate. I mean if top dogs don't get tested so often, what's happening with someone ranked 100-200/300? I just don't know. How often do they test players ranked, let's say 400-500. do they even test them?

Can a player ranked 400-500 afford this? Cyclists belong to a team with sponsors and financial resources. Lowly ranked tennis players rarely do so.

my point was more metaphoric but I'm still, wondering how and how often WADA test players especially lower ranked ones.

The case comes days after former seven times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong admitted to using banned drugs and blood doping during his cycling career.Code-names

Spanish police carried out a series of raids on offices, laboratories and flats in Madrid, Zaragoza and El Escorial in May 2006 as part of an investigation known as Operation Puerto.

They found about 200 bags of blood or frozen plasma with labels that were believed to be code-names for Dr Fuentes's clients - athletes who were allegedly benefiting from a highly-sophisticated doping programme.

Dozens of cyclists were allegedly implicated in the scandal, including former Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, who is expected to give evidence in the trial.

The World Anti-Doping Agency has said that it was told, at the time of the raids, that the bags of blood also related to athletes from several sports, including football and tennis.

But the trial will focus only on cyclists who, according to the chief prosecutor in the case, are the only athletes that could be identified from the bags of blood seized.

The trial is expected to last until mid-March.

If found guilty, the defendants could face up to two years in prison and a two-year professional ban.

ALMOST a year after earning the wrath of Rafael Nadal for controversial comments about doping in Spain, former French Open champion Yannick Noah now claims the problem is more widespread than he initially feared.

Noah said he does not resile from his allegations last November that "magic potions" were largely responsible for the growing dominance of Spanish athletes in some sports.

But the 1983 Roland Garros champion said that while he saw no reason "to repent" for singling out Spain, he was certain the problem is far greater given the wide-ranging scope of the scandal involving Lance Armstrong.

"I have nothing against Spain. They have great champions there," he said.

"What I do know is that doping and betting are very bad for the sport professionally. I would be very happy to sit at a table with people to try to develop something that would help deal with these problems.

"I understand that many people are trying to play nice but are paying dearly for it. Look what happened in cycling with Lance Armstrong. It took . . . 10 years to find something that everyone already knew long ago. This is very sad."

Noah, whose son Yoakhim plays in the NBA, was condemned by Spanish sporting stars and officials when he aired his views last November.

Spain's Olympic Committee president, Alejandro Blanco, said at the time the boom was due to hard work.

Nadal, who is currently side-lined with a knee injury, was furious that his country's integrity had been questioned when asked about Noah's comments while in London at the end-of-season championships.

"To say that is a totally stupid thing because you know how many anti-doping controls we are having during all the season year by year," Nadal said.

But revelations that disgraced doctor Luis Garcia del Moral, a key participant in the Lance Armstrong doping scandal, had worked with several past and present tennis players through his affiliation with a tennis academy in Valencia, Spain, have raised eyebrows.

The International Tennis Federation moved in August to warn players, including French Open finalist Sara Errani, against working with del Moral when the USADA allegations against him became clear.

Others linked with the TennisVal academy include former world No 1 Dinara Safina, Spanish star David Ferrer and Russian Igor Andreev.

Noah, whose comments at an exhibition in Brazil came after he and another former French star, Guy Forget, were aboard a plane forced to make an emergency landing following an explosion, said any players found to have used drugs during their careers should be forced to return all they had earned at the time.

Q: Hi Rafa, Massive fan from Ireland. Can you inform us all of your diet, are you on any shakes etc. for extra protein? Just how did you get that left gun so big?? (Conor Daly, Ireland)

RN: Nope, no diet at all, just the normal things of a pro player. Lots of carbohydrates, proteins, meat, fish, salads, .... I think you mean by guns the arms? Believe me that is from playing tennis, no gym at all.

Disgraced Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes has given explosive evidence on the first day of Operation Puerto trial, telling a Spanish court he treated athletes, footballers, a boxer and tennis players, but claimed he was helping their recovery from anaemia rather than enhancing their performance illegally.

...But the judge Julia Santamaria has rejected a plea from the prosecutors to allow the detailed evidence gathered from Fuentes computer files because it would be a breach of privacy. It is believed such evidence includes references to specific sportsmen and women outside of cycling.